Mortise lockset

My wife loves those antique glass mortise locksets can anyone tell me if these are fairly easy to install? Can they be put into PVC/plastic doors? We moved into this newer home built in 95 and all the interior doors are PVC and the wife wants to give the home and older/antique fee and wants to change all handles to glass door handles with mortise locksets.. Can you please advise if it can be done and thanks for your help in advance.

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Mortise lockset

I have installed thousands of mortise locks and would not consider them easy to install for a DIYer. Not to say that it can't be done. What you need to be absolutely sure of is that you have plenty of solid blocking inside the door. The mortise case can't be left to flop around inside the door. The other part of this is that the escutcheons on a mortise set serve to bear the lateral loads of the knobs and need to be very secure. A thin door skin won't allow much bite for screws. If the door is suitable, use good boring bits and be prepared to work slowly and patiently. You don't want to oversize the mortise and you want the case to be centered in the door. Most times I used a mortising machine, but I hand cut more than a few. Measure twice, cut once. FWIW, you can buy bore-in locksets with glass knobs.

Mortise lockset

Quote:

Originally Posted by joecaption

Why not just change the lock set and use the hole you already have?

This. Those doors will likely not be able handle the installation of an actual mortise assembly.

What is it your wife thinks is going to be accomplished? Better feel to operating the doors, or just looks? If she doesn't like the flimsy way the doors feel the solution is replace the door, not spend a ton of money trying to make a mortise work in it. All you'll have then is the same door mediocre feel and a much lighter wallet.

We just had more than two dozen Tru-stile doors installed. Combination of wood and a type of MDF. Had a few of them in our old house. Heavy, with a great feel to them as you open/close. Going with standard bore locksets.

That would be you better solution, just get new door slabs. You could go with mortise locksets but, honestly, there's little point to it. Not when there's so many options to chose from with regular bore sets. It's the weight and construction of the door that matters more.

Mortise lockset

One thing I did fail to mention. If you already have cylindrical locksets installed with a 2-1/8" cross bore, there is no way that you will be able to repair the existing hole in order to accomodate the trim for a mortise set short of using repair plates or oversized escutcheons. Niether of those options provide the good solid install you want for a mortise set.